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In just its third year, the musically
diverse Bonnaroo
Music Festival has already
become the biggest and highest grossing musical
event ($14.5 million this year) in the United
States. Having sold out each year with no traditional
advertising while selling all tickets directly
to fans, this four-day camping festival, produced
by Superfly Productions and A.C.
Entertainment, appears to be an anomaly
and already has become a "must-attend"
event for many. This year, 90,000 attendees came
to a 700-acre farm in Manchester, TN for a plethora
of music with a distinctly broad scope of focus
on innovative acts - both established and up-and-coming.
With a temporary city constructed on a cow pasture,
fans were treated to over 80 acts spread out over
two outdoor stages and four large music tents,
aptly named "Which Stage," "What
Stage," "That Tent," "This
Tent," "The Other Tent" and "Another
Tent" to avoid confusion!
Bonnaroo, which is slang for "good times"
in Creole, is the prototype for festivals of the
future. This grassroots rock festival boasted
the largest temporary wireless Internet deployment
in the United States with a coverage area of over
five square miles. This meant that in the middle
of a concert field one could open up their laptop
and be on the Internet! The good times at the
independently run Bonnaroo were focused on music
that leaned toward improvisation, whether it was
bluegrass (Yonder
Mountain String Band), indie-rock
(Grandaddy),
pop-rock (Guster),
Latin (Spam
Allstars), jazz (Jazz
Mandolin Project), funk (Bernie
Worrell), alt-country (Neko
Case), punk (Patti
Smith), prog-rock (Umphrey's
McGee), singer-songwriters (Erin
McKeown, Donovan
Frankenreiter, Mike
Doughty, and Nellie
McKay among others), techno-pop (Jem),
deejays (Cut
Chemist), along with everything in
between. Here is a look at the majority of ASCAP
artists that played Bonnaroo. Click on the act's
name to go to the artist's website.
Words and Photos By Jon
Bahr
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